Basic Space
by CrimsonCobwebs
Summary: The trials and tribulations of raising a thief.
1. KittyCat

Ah, I dunno what the hell this is, other than a time killer and pretty weird, I guess. At any rate, it's drabblish (surprise, surprise). The worst thing is I can see this becoming more than a oneshot. Maybe. Bleh. Anywho, drop me a review on ya way out, please? Enjoy!

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**Basic Space****  
**(Kitty-Cat)

_- 1_

Zidane's arrival into Tantalus was both a blessing and a curse, and even then the former could only be acknowledged in hindsight.

Baku blithely shrugged the addition off with 'The more the merrier', though things were never that simple. His timing was bad financially and space wise, as the dingy hollow beneath the clocktower was newly founded, barely furnished and in the middle of an unauthorised renovation. Baku was busting ass just to keep food on the table, skittering around the law like a rat dodging a street lamp's light, with only a smattering of unruly kids to pick pockets during the day and some lazy assholes that he intended to give the boot once the building work was done.

But Zidane had found Baku as much as Baku had found him, one unsuspecting late summer's day, and Baku couldn't deny fate – or a potential investment. When the kid literally collided into him on the street, all but traumatised from being chased by three uniformed men, a loaf of bread in his trembling hands, barefoot, dirty, clad in rags and eyes like chips of sapphire glinting something terrified and pleading, Baku found he didn't have the heart to say no when the Lindblum Pedestrian Guard asked if the child belonged to him. He had to dish out the money for the bread, and a fifty gil fine for the theft, and little did he know that that was just the start of his problems.

For one, he couldn't even speak Gaian. They barely managed to discern his name, through much pointing and pantomime. The weird tongue he occasionally gibbered was far beyond anything Baku had ever heard, and on top of that he was horrendously malnourished, very, very young and more feral than a Fang. Baku knew it would take some work until the kid was a useful – and much needed –pair of hands in their struggling troupe.

But one person was particularly taken with him, albeit in a way that was far from helpful, and a touch unethical. The six-year-old in question had been hassling Baku for a pet since he'd given the kid a place to call home years before, and was brusquely refused with a curse and cuff each time. Now the joke was on Baku because the kid treated the unfriendly, untalkative, tailed creature hiding under his bed like a bloody animal.

"Here, kitty kitty," Blank cooed to the darkness, squatting on his haunches and clicking his fingers at the large, wary eyes glowing blue in its mantle. "C'mere, tut, tut, c'mere, would'ja?"

"Quit that," Baku scolded and stomped his foot when Blank deftly ducked out of the inevitable cuff. "He aint a bloody cat jus' 'cause he's got a tail! Just leave 'im alone and he'll come out in his own time!"

Blank tossed a mutinous glare Boss' way, then returned his attention to the closet of shadows. "Zidane, come out and play, would'ja?" he enticed, shuffling closer. "Do you like playin'? There's a ton o' cool stuff we can do but if ya gonna act like a right dick then ya'll never know, right? Besides yer gonna make Boss angry and he ah... he's right scary when he's mad. You don't wanna see that, trust me."

Unperturbed, the eyes continued to shoot flints of wary hostility at the intruder, calculating though they were, perhaps in an attempt to decipher what the hell the kid was jabbering on about in the first place.

Blank's six-year-old patience finally broke, replaced by a courage that had experienced too few bites instead of barks to validate its recklessness. He dropped to his belly and wormed forward, hoping to join Zidane in his den. Unfortunately, Zidane wasn't in the mood to share, and the moment Blank breached his refuge he lashed out with one dirty, bare foot, landing a blow on Blank's forehead with a muffle smack. The redhead yelped and scooted back so fast he hit his head on the bed's wooden frame, which actually hurt more than the kick, and did a clumsy backwards roll across the rug.

"Ouch you stupid – _Bad kitty_! Boss, _boss_ Zidane kicked me on the frickin' head!"

"Hehehe," was all the sympathy Baku offered, and Blank scowled into the darkness and hissed, "I'll get you fer that!"

_- 2_

"I dunno, man. Boss is gonna flip his lid when he finds out," the voice of seasoned reason argued over Blank's impetuous plan.

"Yah, but he wont, right? You aint gonna tell 'im, right?"

"No it's just –"

"Then quit worrying."

"I don't see how I've been dragged into this..." Marcus lamented, picking an incisor with his thumb nail. "I mean, he didn't kick _me_. And anyway Cinna kicked you yesterday and you didn't do anything to _him_."

"That's different," Blank reasoned. "This kid is new. He needs to know you can't just go kickin' your bros around, right?"

"You kicked me yesterday too..."

"That's _different_!" Blank yelled, then dropped a devious gaze to the clay bowl in his hand, in which pink goo shone iridescent in the rich afternoon sunlight, smelling of spirits and liquorice. As Blank stirred it with a wooden spoon he rationalised, "Anyway, Boss'll thank me in the end 'cause this is gonna get that kid out from under the bed. I mean, he can't stay under there fer much longer."

"He's only been under there two days... You're just mad 'cause you're too scared to sleep on the bed anymore."

"Am not! Don't matter none anyhow; the potion's done."

Blank's parents had been apothecaries before they'd perished in the Narrow's Fire, and for better or worse he'd retained some knowledge of mixing potions and medicine, the ingredients deviating into more questionable substances the deeper he sunk into Lindblum's underworld. Regardless, Baku encouraged his ability in hopes he might blossom into something like the troupes' doctor some day, free of charge, of course.

Blank emptied a packet of Cinna's candy into the bowl and swirled it together, ignoring Marcus' drawled warning about Cinna's possessive disposition when it came to food, especially food Blank had scouted from under his pillow.

Once this was done, Blank fished out the potion-soaked candy and deposited them on the floor, within easy reach of the reclusive kid's shadowy domain. "Here ya go," he announced chirpily. "Grubs up, kitty."

"He's not a cat..." Marcus made a point of it.

Ignoring him, "Alright, let's hide!"

"He's not even a demi-cat..."

"Will you get over here, already?"

"This is a stupid idea."

"Shaddup!"

"He's never gonna fall for this."

But he did. A few weighty moments after the older boys had scuttled behind a chest, a furry limb slid out of the darkness like an exotic snake, twitching its head left and right as if it had eyes. Then with a careful flick the candy was swept under the bed, and the sound of crunching heralded success.

"No shit," Marcus allowed, impressed eyebrows practically breaching his hairline. "He totally fell for it."

"Told'ja," Blank couldn't help but gloat. "Now we gotta wait to for the potion to take effect, and then we can drag 'im out."

_- 3_

Blank's grin was ear to ear not a quarter of a bell later as he peered down at the boy sprawled across the carpet in the damning light of open space, insentient as a bear in winter. Arms akimbo and open-mouthed, indescribably filthy, skinny and smelly, he looked vulnerable and not very kitty-like at all.

"Alright," Blank said, propping little hands on hips. "We gotta block up the bed so he can't run away again."

"That seems kinda mean," Marcus reflected, scratching his head. "I mean, what if he's proper scared? You dunno what this kid's been through."

Blank scoffed away his concern, busy pushing a large chest toward the frame of his bed. Marcus could only shrug and offer his help, wondering if there were better things to be done with his time than stuffing books under a bed.

"So... ah... what are you gonna do when he wakes up?" he worried.

"Show 'im who's boss!" was Blank's logical response. Then he retracted, "Well, aside from Boss, of course. But maybe he'll wanna play after or somethin'."

"Um...I don't think..." but Marcus cut off the sentiment. Some lessons were best learnt the hard way, Boss would lecture, and Blank wasn't likely to listen anyway. "If you say so."

_- 4_

The kid didn't want to play when he woke up.

His head was throbbing like it had been hit with a hammer, the skeleton of a headache fleshing out behind his eyes that were blurred and hurting. He flexed his tail experimentally and a small groan escaped through chapped lips, but he could definitely feel his limbs, which was a good sign. That realisation heralded the next: he was in daylight and there were people above him.

Blank's idea of having a playmate vanished when Zidane realised he was no longer within the safe confines of his shadow-dipped castle; he shot up and head-butted Blank between the eyes.

"Yee-ooOO_WW_!" Blank wailed, stumbling backwards and clutching his thoroughly abused head.

Zidane bounced off the floor like his tail was on fire, breathing erratic and eyes racing to every corner the hideout had to offer. His reflexes drove him back to the bed, but he barked something horrified when his plan was severed by boxes and books. He twirled, but then Blank was on him, using his bigger six-year-old weight to pin the blonde to the floorboards. Somewhere in the of cobweb of scaffolding overhead, the builders working on the clocktower's refurbishment bellowed something that could have been scolding or alarmed; Blank's ears were ringing so loud he neither cared nor heard them.

He delivered a sweet knock to Zidane's jaw with his balled fist, and again to his chest, but the blonde recovered at an alarming rate and managed to kick him off. He used the respite to gain his footing and spot a potential safe point in the slim crook beneath a wardrobe, but the redhead caught him by the tail and he fell forward, knocking his chin on the boards and biting his tongue. Enduring the pain, he rolled and kicked Blank in the face, tail slithering free of insistent fingers, but now he was _mad_, and instead of fleeing to the next hidey-hole he leapt on top of the redhead and returned the punch to the jaw.

So they scrapped like rabid squirrels, neither trained in combat though both with some advantage: Zidane was quick and nimble while Blank was bigger and ferocious, though either way it remained an unruly mess of flailing limbs and puppy yelps; they rolled around a rug biting and pulling and kicking and yelling until the ruckus was broken by an even more frightening sound.

"_What in the name of Odin's bloody balls is going on?"_

The brawling thieves froze mid-fight, Blank's hand tangled in Zidane's hair and Zidane's hand pushing away Blank's face; both wore expressions of terror, caught in the act like an oglop in a vegetable patch.

Baku loomed in the doorway, disbelieving and furious, looking like a wrathful god for all his bulk was worth.

Silence answered. Even Marcus shrank back, the accessory that he was.

"What, ya'll gone deaf, dumb and stupid? Mother of fuck, Marcus, I leave you to watch these two simpletons for one fuckin' hour and they're bitin' eachother's asses off like flea-bittin' dogs!"

"S-sorry Bo-"

"And _you_!" Baku thundered, a furious finger cocked Blank's way like the bolt of a crossbow. "What did I tell ya about leavin' him be?"

Blank and Zidane were still frozen in their violent hug, the latter of which only had an inkling about what was happening. Ironically, of all the people who came and went outside his sanctuary of beneath-the-bed, Baku was the least of his concerns; he did save him from the scary men and give him food and a warm place to sleep, afterall. So when the boss crossed the space and plucked both he and Blank up by the scruffs of their neck he only bleated a weak protest.

"Now," Baku said, voice level and stern as he propped them on their feet opposite one another. "Say yer sorry, Blank."

The redhead slung him an indignant look. "Buh-but!"

Baku's glare could have levelled a mountain. "What was that, kiddo?"

Blank gulped thickly and turned his gaze to the blonde opposite, who stared back at him with an expression that was half oblivious and half wary. "Suh-sorry. I just wanted to be f-friends," he offered, fighting off the hotness around his eyes.

Zidane blinked stupidly at him, then at Boss, who nodded and gestured at Blank and said, "Say yer sorry, Zidane."

Zidane looked at Blank and conjured the first grin they'd seen yet, all impish mischief on a beaten up face that boded ill of things to come. "Yar soree, Zidane."

Baku rolled his eyes. "Good enough, I suppose."


	2. Deception

I guess I have a lot of these floating around my head, most of which I consider embellishments and improvements on my old stuff. Oh and um... there's swearing. Lots of swearing. But I guess I'm a chapter too late for that, right?

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_(Deception)_

-1

Unfortunately, one of the first words Zidane learnt to dish out like gil at an auction house was the very word that caused the most trouble in a house of young thieves.

"Mine!"

Baku had a strong inkling that Zidane was playing dumb for the sake of playing dumb, repeating the word again and again to push his luck and drive his poor boss insane.

"Ge'off yer little rat!" Baku hollered, slinging a fist at the kid who skipped neatly out the way. "This aint yours so keep yer grubby mitts off else I'll lock ya in the goddamn cupboard!"

There was something very comprehending in Zidane's impish eyes, a dash of brazen mischief that wouldn't have brewed if he didn't understand the concept of ownership, a thief though he was.

"Mine," he chirped jovially again, pointing to the sandwich in Boss' hand.

"No!" Baku yelled, too worked up to ignore the bait. "Piss off. This is _my_ lunch. I made it, I bought the ham, I bought the bread so ya _can't have it_."

But Zidane had stashed in his arsenal something few of the younger Tantalus boys could boast, and something Baku was rather unaccustomed to: Zidane was undeniably, unbearably, vomit-inducingly cute. Washing off his weight's worth of dirt revealed features fit for a cherub, hair as flaxen as sun-bleached hay and eyes like a summer's sky. Baku wondered if he'd fallen out the backend of something more regal than your average Lindblumese family, the illegitimate child of a married nobleman, perhaps. But then Zidane would flash that grin and Baku wondered if he wasn't a devil-sent imp disguised in angelic garb, its sole purpose to punish a man who'd dedicated his life to the vexation of others.

"Minneee?" he drew his favourite word into a sorry plea, eyes shining like coins at the bottom of a spring – gods damn him to Hades' Inferno he'd even mastered The Pout.

"Fine," Baku relented. "But only 'cause a Tantalus always gets what he sets eyes on. That's our number one rule, right?" He tore the sandwich in two and all but threw it at the kid. "But next time yer gonna have to do more than just look cute to get it."

The twinkle in Zidane's eye called his bluff as he devoured his prize in four big bites.

-2

The first sign was the emergence of the bucket. A big, rusty thing with a pinprick hole in its side, so that a persistent trickle of water followed its carrier around like a tail. On reflection, Baku wondered if it wasn't the sight of the bucket that instigated flight, but rather the sound of water pattering onto the floorboards of the Hideout.

Either way, the kids had vanished into various hidey holes like cat-chased rodents by the time Baku had finished filling up the old tub out back, and were practically impossible to find without a trained sniffer dog of sorts (though the bath was drawn with good reason so it was likely they'd be found by the dog's reluctance to venture too close instead). Baku had to enlist the help of both Cinna and Marcus, which only pissed him off more because time spent looking for rodents was time wasted earning much needed gil. But what was even worse, he also had to call in favours from Lindblumese folk who owed him, posting them around the hideout to catch – or at least report – if either of the culprits managed to flee through the upstairs window or back door.

"Zidane!" Cinna crooned as he peered beneath a bed. "C'mere! Where are you?"

"Here kitty, kitty," Marcus joked with a grin, and Blank would've yelled at him if he hadn't been hiding. "Yo, Blank, you better come out. You don't wanna get another beatin' from Boss, right? I hear if you get hit enough times around the head your brains start comin' outta ya ears like jelly."

"You're only makin' it worse fer yourself," Cinna reasoned. "You're gonna take a bath either way and if you keep stallin' the water's gonna get cold."

Still, no reply, so Marcus and Cinna began scouting the room proper, opening every treasure chest, cupboard and curtain, kicking every bundle of clothes and pulling the sheets off every bunk and mattress. Only when the Hideout looked like it had been turned upside down and shaken did they stop to scratch their heads, mentally ticking off the hovels and hidey-holes until Marcus clicked his fingers and pointed down. Cinna's podgy mug split with a wily grin and he offered a distraction by noisily emptying the contents of a cupboard.

Marcus kicked aside the rug at his feet then threw back the trapdoor underneath to reveal a small storage space, big enough to stash some loot and a curled up, redheaded mouse that squeaked, "Eep!"

"Gotcha," Marcus said, plucking the kid from his hideout before he could dash away. "Ehehe. Better luck next time, eh?"

"Leggo you son of a deformed Zaghnol's arsehole!"

"That doesn't even make sense. Quit squirming. You're only makin' it harder for yourself." Blank didn't stop squirming, but Marcus held his arm with Fenrir's grip until Boss swooped in from outside to pluck him like a flower, stashing him under one arm and boxing his ears. That sure made him shut up, and he hung limp as rag in pouty defeat.

"Right," Baku said, all business-like. "Where's the other little shit?"

"He's up there," Blank eagerly volunteered, and when all eyes turned skyward they saw the monkey peering out from behind a cog. The runaway yelped something angry at Blank in his own language, ending it with a very clear: "fucknshit" – one of the many delightful phrases he'd picked up from his brothers.

"I'm dragging you down with me!" was the closest Blank came to apologising.

Zidane slung a calculating stare at the window on the adjacent wall, some twenty feet away, but then wondered just how far the drop to the cobblestones was outside, if he made it to the window at all. Then he remembered what happened last time he actually escaped the building and decided he definitely a) didn't want to go back in the cupboard and b) wanted dinner for the next three nights.

So with his priorities in mind, he clambered down the network of gears and landed gracelessly on his behind. He received a cuff round the head for his troubles, then was picked up by his tail, eliciting an indignant squeal from him, followed by a list of all the bad words he'd picked up over the last few days, including, but not limited to, 'shittinsonuvabitch!' and concluded with an outraged, "_MINE_!"

"Ehehe," Baku agreed, before dumping them both in the tub of now freezing water, clothes, pouts and all.

-3

While the average thief resident to the hideout was neither bothered nor unamused by Zidane's inappropriate grasp of the Gaian language, his tact left a lot to be desired, so taking him out in public was difficult bordering on embarrassing. Not only would he cuss like a drunk sailor at friend and stranger alike, but none of the store owners appreciated the repeated 'mine' he threw at their unsold merchandise. Baku wasn't about to apologise for the kid's gauche behaviour because no one appreciated a troubled upbringing quite like him, and neither did he scold Zidane as long as he kept his hands to himself - at least while people were watching.

But after a while Baku tired of Zidane's shrill voice chirping obscenities and false claims as he picked his way through a bustling market, and he'd never benefited from unwanted attention yet. To hush him up he took him to a stand that was selling shaved ice and immediately Zidane was in the throes of a fit of 'mines', tossing them all over the damn place like breadcrumbs to pigeons.

"Alright, alright, shut yer damn trap fer two seconds, would ya?" Baku grumbled under his breath, counting gil into his palm while Zidane practically clawed up his trouser leg to see the colourful shaved ice the stall owner was making for the kid in front.

Once the previous patrons had moved along (Zidane's eyes following the other kid's treat like he could magic it into his own hands) Baku gruffly asked for a Strawberry Ice, and just when the guy was halfway through making it, Zidane said clear as crystal, "Nuh-uh, I want a blue one."

Baku stared down at him. Zidane stared back, and when his request went answered he added, "Please?"


	3. Assessment of a Monkey

I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing again so I thought I'd warm myself up with this chapter. Reviews are always appreciated. Enjoy!

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_(Assessment of the Monkey)_

-1

It was fair to say that the Hideout hadn't seen half its worth of mischief before Zidane came about, which was quite remarkable considering the nature of its residents. But that kid seemed to brew mischief like beer in a brewery. A day without drama was rarely looked upon as a blessed relief; uneventful days were ominous in their nature, often treated like calms before a storm, especially where Zidane was involved, and he inevitably was, one way or another.

While Baku wasn't adverse to randomly pointing fingers and flailing fists (perhaps more out of laziness than to abide by a guilty until proven innocent rule) he could sniff Zidane's involvement out like a Qu to a frog. Not a particularly hard feat, considering Zidane turned tail the moment he caught whiff of an impending punishment. True, Zidane's absence announced his guilt with more efficiency than a town crier. The words 'Where's Zidane?' inevitably heralded something ill-omened and his absence was obvious for one simple reason.

Zidane was clingy.

Baku deduced that his initial aversion to company was actually the result of fear and disorientation; following his initiation into the group he quickly exhibited a dislike of being alone. His outright refusal to be left behind on any occasion – be it a trip to the market or one of Tantalus' more delicate missions – was initially mistaken for enthusiasm for the trade, but Baku soon realised otherwise. Maybe it was to do with his past: maybe the kid hadn't had a family before and was now relishing it, maybe he was scared of being abandoned again, or maybe he didn't have enough imagination to entertain himself.

Regardless, Zidane was indisputably clingy.

He sat on laps, he gripped hands, he hugged legs and clung to backs. He was especially attached to Baku, and much to the large man's annoyance he seized every chance to scale his back and seat himself on Baku's shoulders, hugging his head while considering the world from this advantageous perspective, earning him the nickname 'monkey boy' heedless of his tail.

Once attached to his victim, Zidane was nearly impossible to remove, like a burr on cotton pants. No amount of shaking would release his titan grip on a hand; no amount of kicking could shake him from a pant leg. So stubborn was his need to cling that he even shrugged off the occasional punch from a particularly querulous brother (though he wasn't afraid to bite the hand he held if need be, so the other boys usually tolerated the attention for their own sakes).

Today, Zidane's affection had turned to Blank, which was quite unusual. Of all the boys, Zidane tended to leave the redhead well alone, even opting to risk a bash on the head from Cinna's hammer in place of clinging to the other. Baku hadn't figured out why exactly, though Blank certainly hated Zidane's attention with more fervour than any other member and rarely surrendered the good fight, and a fight between those two never ended well.

But Zidane had little choice today because Baku was carrying something bulky over his shoulder, Marcus had his hands full and the Tantalus construction worker, Kina, had given him such a nasty swat round the head that Zidane wisely decided to steer clear.

"Don't, Zidane, you're makin' me trip!" Blank yelled for possibly the thousandth time as he did indeed stumble over his own two feet, hindered as they were by his smaller brother, who had locked himself onto Blank's arm. "Boss! Boss!"

But Baku ignored him, as he had done the other nine hundred and ninety nine times, because if everyone else could adjust to Zidane's clinginess without whining, so could Blank.

"Let go!" the redhead yelled again as he attempted to unpick Zidane's little fingers one by one. When that didn't work he slapped him round the head, which earned him a look so imploring even he had to admit defeat.

Zidane was scared.

Blank acknowledged this with a superior kind of sympathy (he wasn't a little kid like Zidane anymore so he wasn't scared of those things because he knew better) and decided to educate the blonde in hopes his arm would be released.

"It's alright, Zidane," he said, pointing upward. "They don't hurt you. They're not even alive. Yeah they're big and make alotta noise and well… I guess sometimes they can hurt you if they crash n' stuff, but they're sitting now so they can't hurt anyone. Unless they explode."

Zidane, who was picking up Gaian at an unholy rate, managed to stem together bits of what his brother was saying. He stared balefully upward and repeated, "Dead? They all dead?"

"Yeah, they weren't even alive in the first place. They're just, y'know… objects. Like Cinna's hammer or um… Boss' armchair."

"But but… they things move." He briefly unhooked a hand to flap it like a wing. "Up up. At the sky."

"That's called flying," Blank told him. "But they fly because of the machines inside of them. And the machines are worked by men. Anyway, you can see for yerself 'cause we need to board now."

"No!" Zidane yelled. He liberated Blank's arm and rooted himself to the wooden planks, tail drooping between his legs.

Blank stopped and stared at him, then glanced over his shoulder at the retreating figures of Boss and Kina, either oblivious or indifferent to his plight. His eyes then trailed upward to the looming monstrosity overhead, the grumbling of its engine amplified by the distant eaves of Lindblum's Airship Dockyard.

Blank didn't understand why Zidane was so afraid of airships. Blank had grown up in Lindblum and airships were about as common and numerous as birds in the sky there. In that respect, if he didn't come from Lindblum it kind of made sense that Zidane might be frightened of them. Maybe they didn't have airships where he was from? Or maybe they did, and he fell off one and hit his head. That would explain why he couldn't talk properly and acted weird. And nothing made Zidane act weirder than an airship. He ducked into shadowed nooks whenever one flew overhead, no matter how distant, and wouldn't come out until someone dragged him. Just the sound of an engine sent him scuttling like a rabbit into a burrow; it was a miracle Boss had managed to draw him as close as he had today. Baku said he didn't care what happened in the past because Zidane was going to get used to going on airships and he was going to get used to it _now_.

Easier said than done, Blank thought, when Zidane was as stubborn as hell's fire.

"Come on, we gotta go!" Blank pleaded, noticing that Boss had already boarded.

"No," Zidane said.

Blank shook him by the arms. "You're annoying! We have to go or we'll get left behind."

"Don't care."

"Rrrrgh! I'm gonna drag you in a minute!"

"No."

He had that look in his eye, Blank noted. The one that said he was ready to run. And if he ran Blank couldn't catch him, and then Boss would beat him bad. Blank wasn't really a boy of words, despite his intelligence, and if he'd been big like Marcus he would've just picked the kid up and carried him, but that just wasn't an option.

His gaze swept the dockyards self-consciously, then he said, "I'll let you hold my hand, okay?"

Zidane fixed him with a calculating look, then his shoulders relaxed and his face drooped into a sulky, conceding pout. "Okay."

Unfortunately for Blank, Zidane didn't let go until they landed in Alexandria, two hours later, and by then every member of Tantalus was witness to Blank's mortification, and the ribbing he got consequently just wasn't worth it.

-2

Baku knew his boys would never be shining examples of etiquette. He had neither the time nor motivation to teach them, so naturally they learnt from example, either from Baku or the charming civilians of Lindblum underworld. Nevertheless, they weren't bad as kids go; each had their own perks: Marcus was calm and obedient, Blank was intelligent and reasonable, Cinna was enthusiastic and creative and Zidane… Well, he sure was something… Baku could have coined all kinds of terms to define that kid, but he didn't know what to make of him. In fact, right now, Baku was hard pressed in finding even a single positive.

"What the hell are you doing, boy?" Baku roared as he yanked Zidane up by his collar. This was a rash move on his behalf, because a few seconds later things might have gotten messy; the four year old had been about to urinate on the sign outside Malcov's Item Shop in broad daylight in the middle of Lindblum. "I dunno what hovel you crawled out of but normal people don't take a piss in the middle of a street! Don't ya know that much?"

For reasons Baku couldn't hope to determine it appeared that Zidane didn't, and regardless of Baku's fury he was squirming and whimpering in his grip, eyes pleading and desperate.

"Oh for the love of Shiva's frozen tits, hang on just a second, would you?" Baku relented with a roll of his eyes. He dropped Zidane to the cobblestones then dragged him into the pub opposite and through to the outhouse, a disbelieving Cinna trailing in their wake.

"I told you he wasn't house trained," Cinna mumbled. "Or street trained…"

"Now listen here, boy," Baku yelled through the wooden door of the outhouse. "You tell me when you need the bathroom, got it? You'll have the fuckin' Lindblum Watch on our asses if you pull crazy shit like that, and that's the last thing we need considerin' our fuckin' profession. You listenin'?"

Zidane gingerly emerged still pulling up his oversized pants. He wore an expression that was both baffled and rueful, though he generally understood what the mountainous man was bellowing about, even if he didn't understand why people couldn't just go wherever they please. It's not like that sign had been clean in the first place!

Baku rubbed a hand over his face, sighed, then picked his way back through the tavern, barely fighting off the urge to knock one back even though the midday bells had yet to chime.

-3

Despite Zidane's lack of… generally anything resembling a civilised person, Baku was surprised to discover a streak of genuine goodness in the kid's heart at just the tender age of four, when kids are meant to be a blur of impulsive, selfish emotion. Thieves in particular were notoriously selfish for reasons more related to poverty than bad character, but as Baku stared out the window at the kid he couldn't help but recall the day's previous incident and his own miscalculation of the boy's persona.

Even before the Hideout was close to being finished, each Tantalus member had their own stash of personal belongings, secured and fiercely guarded in hidey holes throughout the clocktower. Zidane had his own too, coined 'the Zidane pile' by his brothers, because it literally was a pile in the corner, blatant as the furniture, but safe from stealing hands because it was a pile of rubbish.

Baku had to admit that Zidane was a remarkable thief. Baku was in the process of training him out of the 'mine' phase, but anything that piqued the kid's interest was as good as gone. With no clear concept of ownership Zidane had no reservations about stealing. Unfortunately, he also had no concept of value. Half the time he returned with things as useless as they were worthless: the rubber head of a mallet, an empty ink pot, a bent fork. Baku attempted to educate him on what was considered valuable, but the kid still managed to include his own personal twist to his takings, nabbing rings that were cheap but shiny and silk handkerchiefs bearing colourful stains.

While Baku confiscated these for financial aid (pitiful though it was), he magnanimously allowed him his pile of crap if it kept him happy. In addition, the kid had made a nest of it and claimed it as his sleeping spot, shunning the crowded mattresses and blankets fought over by the other boys, which spared Baku a headache every night.

However, he was just as finicky as the others over his 'territory', so even now he watched warily from the crown of his junk as Cinna hopped over to nosily poke through it all.

"I just don't get this kid," the podgy eight-year-old commented as he turned an ambiguous object over and over in his hands. "What is this anyway? It's made of wood."

"It's the handle of a saucepan," Marcus observed as he joined the rummaging. "Look at this one shoe – not even the laces are in it. He could've at least nicked one with a buckle… And what the hell is th – ack!" Marcus dropped the thing he'd been looking at. "It's a rat's tail! That's just wrong, man."

"Hey!" Cinna chirped brightly, ignoring Marcus' grim discovery as he made an agreeable one. "Look at this hiding at the bottom; it's a stuffed chocobo toy! This is a pretty sweet find, only rich kids get these."

"Aren't you a bit old for stuffed toys…?"

"Shut up!" Cinna barked petulantly. "Hm, well, I'm sure Zidane won't mind if I take this. He's got so much stuff anyways."

The words were barely out of his mouth before Zidane jumped on him with an outraged 'Mine!'. The chocobo was wrestled from his hands and when Cinna rolled onto his back with a snuffly 'Hey!' Zidane had already lovingly replaced his prize at the peak of his pile and was sitting atop it like a broody mother hen.

Baku thought then that the boy would be no different to any other thief he'd met. Knowing true poverty made a man humble, but distrustful and greedy, so he wasn't surprised by Zidane's lack of magnanimity towards Cinna. Baku thought he'd sussed the kid out.

But the kid proved him wrong.

-4

On a typical warm, lazy afternoon Baku was playing cards with the builders whose lunch break had surpassed excuse and reason. All the boys were running errands aside from Zidane, who was sitting on Baku's lap staring out the window. He'd been quiet for such a long time Baku thought he was asleep (another of Zidane's inconvenient perks; he slept at the oddest of times) until his observation broke that reflection.

"Kid cry."

"Uh?" Baku grunted, squinting at the splayed cards in his hand.

"Kid cry," Zidane repeated, tail swinging lazily against Baku's leg. He seemed largely unconcerned, so Baku deemed it unworthy of his attention, though he did indeed hear the sound of a baby wailing outside; before now it had simply blended into the general racket of a Lindblum day.

"Yeah," he placated the blonde. "Kid's cry."

Zidane brooded on this a moment. His tail coiled briefly, then he hopped down from Baku's lap and padded across the floor. Baku paid him no mind until he heard the front door slam, them he swivelled in his chair with a frown because Zidane wasn't allowed to wander around Lindblum without permission and he damn well knew it.

Through the dusty windows of the Hideout Baku could see the quiet street outside, lit by steady afternoon sunshine. A familiar metropolis fell beyond the cobbled streets, and centred in the foreground was a woman bent over a pram, quelling a child whose wild cries could be heard even from within the hideout. Zidane approached the woman with something tucked under his arm, and the woman looked up in surprise, said something, and Zidane peered over the lip of the pram, tail curling like a fish hook as he stood on his tiptoes. Then he offered the woman what he'd carried from the Hideout and Baku recognised it as the chocobo toy. The woman's baffled expression dissolved into a smile and she tucked into the baby's chair. The baby's cries stopped, and Zidane and the woman exchanged words.

When Zidane returned he said nothing of the incident but curled up on Baku's lap and fell asleep, and though Baku said nothing of it either, he found himself severely reassessing the kid's character. Maybe he wasn't your average thief, afterall.


	4. Fears and Fairies

**For 'The Key to Oblivion', because they asked. And of course because I love these boiz and general drabble. Review if you enjoyed, pwease.**

* * *

**Basic Space**  
(Fears and Fairies)

-1

Baku was busy. Busy and stressed. That much was clear to anyone, but particularly clear to the Tantalus' boys, who had learned in their short years to read Baku's nuances like a sailor reads the stars. Respectively, they knew when to keep their distance and when to humour him, and when it was safe to hassle him. Momentarily, his hunched back, muttered curses, brusque gestures and the large flagon of beer at hand indicated that he was in a dangerous temperament and should be left well alone.

The boys never could decide whether Zidane was stupid, unobservant or brave, but it was always he who disregarded Baku's body language. It also explained why Zidane was usually a patchwork of fading bruises.

"Hey, boss!"

Baku was seated at the table, furiously counting money into piles and referring to sheets of notes and invoices. Judging by his expression, it wasn't going well.

"Boss. Boss! Boss boss boss!"

Baku turned slowly in his seat. It was a monstrous movement, as he was a monster of a man, especially to the eyes of an eight year old, and the little wooden chair creaked beneath his girth. He stared over his shoulder at the blonde boy with an expression better suited on a dragon that had just been disturbed by a reckless adventurer.

Zidane rung his hands sweetly. "Boss, can I ask you question?"

Baku's ear flattened against his head and his beady eyes narrowed. He said nothing.

"Cinna said that when my tooth falls out I can put it under my pillow and when I fall asleep a pixie or fairy or something will come and take it away and leave ten gil there, or one, sometimes, but Blank says he's lying and the story's for babies, but he keeps trying to knock my tooth out anyway and I really don't want it to come out 'cause then I'll have to drink soup for a week and I hate soup, BUT, I'm thinking that if I do knock it out and the fairy is real –"

"You have two seconds," Baku said, "to get out of my sight, or the fairy'll be swimmin' in teeth by tonight."

"Uh?"

"What I'm sayin'," Baku said levelly, "is that I'm gonna knock _all_ yer teeth outta yer head if you're not gone in the time it takes me to blink."

Zidane's rambling trailed off and he stopped ringing his hands.

Baku stared at Zidane and Zidane stared at Baku.

Zidane opted to keep his teeth.

-2

"It's real, alright," Zidane said two minutes later. "Boss said so."

"Really?"

"Uh, yeah. Kinda. Just with less words."

Blank and Marcus stared at Zidane sceptically, but Cinna nodded his head. "Told you guys."

"I don't believe it," Marcus said.

"You callin' Boss a liar?" Cinna challenged. "We gotta go ahead with this; it's the real deal, all right. We could make big bucks."

"A gil?" Blank said sarcastically.

"Naw, it can be, like, fifty sometimes!"

"I thought you said ten?"

"Depends who it is. Zidane is weird so he's probably got special teeth."

The boys stared at Zidane who touched his front tooth with a sceptical frown. Blank said, "Well I can't argue with that. And it's comin' out anyway, so no harm in trying. Come here then, let's get it out."

Zidane took a step back, alarmed. "Wha? It doesn't hafta come out now! It aint ready!"

"I don't wanna wait," Blank said. "Don't be a baby, it won't hurt. Much."

Zidane pushed his tongue against his wobbly front tooth and it tilted forward grotesquely, hanging on by a fleshy chord. "How ya gonna do it?"

Marcus cracked his knuckles and Zidane scowled. "No way."

"How 'bout we get a piece of string, tie it round his tooth, then tie the other end to a door handle, slam the door shut and bam! The tooth'll be flying out in no time."

"That might work," Blank said, "but we don't got any string fine enough. Zidane's teeth are too small and we only have the kinda rope that we use to climb walls." He paused for a minute, and then clicked his fingers. "We'll just get it out with pliers! Just one twist and a good yank should do it."

Zidane recoiled, wrinkling his nose. "That'll hurt."

"It's gonna hurt whatever," Blank told him matter-of-factly. "You got sucker up and do it."

"No."

"Zid-"

"No, no, no. No way. I aint doin' it, not even for a hundred gil!"

"Why've you gotta be sucha baby? Fine. I'll mix you up some numbing potion, okay?"

Zidane nodded eagerly but Marcus' expression clouded over. "Uh, bro, I don't think that's a good idea. You're not very good at mixing that potion…"

"I am too! I'm the best out of you lot anyway."

"That's not sayin' much… And if Boss finds out that you've gone through his stash again he's gonna be mad."

"He wont find out," Blank said, "'cause no one's gonna tell him. Right?"

The boys nodded gingerly and sat down in the Hideout's dingy basement, while Cinna took up watch at the top of the stairs and Blank fetched his alchemy kit. Unfortunately, Baku remained oblivious.

-3

Numbing potion was better known as Torpeo Septim, and was made by mixing poppy milk, Elixir resin, powered willow bark, water and honey. It was potent and dangerous in large amounts, especially for children, and the ingredients had to be precisely measured and pure.

"Do you think Elix is the same as Elixir resin?"

Marcus stared at the white power Blank was measuring with a set of scales. "Isn't that the stuff Boss gets Benero to sell at the docks?"

"I've seen people put it up their noses to make themselves happy," Cinna piped in. "Boss'll kill you if he knows you've taken it. You know he don't let us near stuff like that."

"It's extracted from Elixir," Blank said, ignoring them and supplying an answer instead, "so I reckon it's pretty much the same thing, but I'll cut the amount, just in case."

"Bro, I don't think –"

"Will you shut up?" Blank snapped. He took a pinch of willow bark and added it to the vial, then shook it vigorously. The water turned from blue to red and the boys stared at it doubtfully.

"Is it meant to be that colour?"

"Uh… yeah. I guess," Blank answered. "I've never made it before but I've seen it being made…"

"Was it red?"

"Stop asking questions and trust me! If you want to know what it feels like to have your tooth wrenched out without pain killer, then keep talkin'."

Zidane immediately fell silent, while Marcus fidgeted apprehensively.

Blank poured some of the potion into a spoon and handed it to Zidane, who swallowed it without question. The boys stared at him apprehensively, waiting to see if he dropped dead on the spot.

He didn't. They waited a quarter of a bell, and then Blank fed him two more spoonfuls. Another quarter passed, and so did three more doses, and after the third, Blank went to pour him another, only to find the vial empty. He stared down its neck, went a bit pale, then turned to look at Zidane.

"Err… how ya doin'?"

Zidane was leaning heavily against the basement wall, head slumped against his chest.

"Zidane? Zidane!"

The boys stared at Zidane and he slowly lifted his head. He was wearing a dopey grin and his pupils were like black saucers.

"You… okay?" Blank asked as he clicked his fingers in front of Zidane's face. He didn't blink. "Can you feel anything? Did it work?"

"I'm pretty sure it worked, bro," Marcus said.

Zidane looked down at his hands, his movements languorous like he was underwater. He slowly clenched and unclenched his hands. "I feel… fuh-funny… hehehehe…"

"Bro…"

"We should pull his tooth out now," Cinna said as he edged closer to the giggling boy. "You got the pliers?"

"I think we should get boss," Marcus said.

"No! No way. We'll just pull his tooth out then put him in bed. Hopefully he'll go to sleep…."

"I don't think he's gonna go to sleep…"

Blank approached Zidane more like he was slumbering beast than a giggling eight-year-old, pliers outstretched. He was about to command Cinna and Marcus to hold him still, when Zidane leapt to his feet with more dexterity than the potion should have allowed for.

He looked once at Blank then down at himself, and said with surprising calm, "My clothes are on fire."

"Wha-" was all Blank managed before Zidane tore off his shirt and went charging up the stairs.

The brothers remained on the floor for a long minute until Baku's roared "WHAT IN SEVEN HELLS -? ZIDANE DON'T YOU GO –" jerked them to their feet and up the stairs, just in time to see Zidane tear off his last article of clothing and hurtle out the front door screaming 'I'M ON FIRE!'.

They stood in a line gawping at the door until a mountain rose up behind them and all but hurled them by their scruffs out the door, bellowing, "GO GET HIM BEFORE THE PISSING GUARDS DO AND IF YOU COME BACK EMPTY HANDED YOU'LL BE WEARING BLACK EYES FOR A YEAR!"

While Marcus and Cinna picked themselves up from the cobblestones beneath the curious eyes of passers-by, Blank approached a lady and asked, "Excuse me, did you see a naked boy run by here? He's blonde and has a tail."

"I don't think you need to describe him, bro," Marcus said.

The woman pointed down the street and the boys took off in that direction. They followed the trail of stunned expressions until they caught up with him, which didn't take as long as they'd first feared, as the potion had made him slower than usual. Blank sent a quick thanks to the gods, because they would never have caught the monkey otherwise.

"At least he's not shouting 'fire' anymore," Marcus said.

Zidane was staggering in an odd way while somehow maintaining his balance. The boy twisted around to glance at them when they called his name, his expression as confused and startled as those he ran by. Then he turned back and ran full pelt into a lamp post and knocked himself unconscious.

The boys caught up with him, panting and sweating, and stared down at his naked, insensate form. They couldn't think of anything to say about the whole thing until Cinna stooped down with an ecstatic cry and held something up to the light.

"We got Zidane's tooth out!"

When they got back to the hideout with Zidane in tow, Baku made sure they all lost a tooth or two, and told them the tooth fairy could pay for the expenses they incurred.

-4

It was late. Too late, to be precise. He should be sleeping soundly, dead to the world outside his cloister of sweet dreams. He'd even settle for a dreamless sleep, if it meant having sleep at all. Anything but this again.

The floorboards creaked once.

The boys of Tantalus were much chagrined by the creaking floors of the Hideout, and had attempted many times to learn and traverse their lengths so their night time exploits and pranks would go undetected. But the floorboards seemed to grumble indiscriminately. The noises shifted along the wood as if the whole place was a ship lurching through waves. There was no way to avoid it and so the Hideout heralded any person who crossed from one room to the next like it was holding a grudge.

Zidane, however, evaded sound. He was crafty and quiet and light on his feet, as any thief should be, but he even more so. It was unnatural, Blank thought. But even the tailed eight-year-old could not avoid the floorboard's whims completely.

And so the floorboards creaked once, and it was enough to rouse Blank from slumber. They were all light sleepers, having come from the streets where one never knew if the creeping shadows were city watch, drunk men, stray dogs or cut throats. It was only recently that he had stopped jerking upright and groping for the dagger beneath his pillow. Now he came awake quietly but abruptly, listening for signs of danger before his mind registered what was happening.

Blank opened his eyes, and by then Zidane had slipped under the covers and clamped his cold little hands around Blank's torso.

"Ah- _ah_! You're col –"

"Ssssh!"

Blank was angry, but Zidane's pleading tone shushed him right up. He could hear the tears in his voice, and he let out a gusty sigh. Blank was angry and he was tired, but Zidane was his little brother, and big brothers don't ignore stuff like this.

So he lay very still for the better part of a quarter bell, waiting for Zidane's trembling and muffled sobs to subside. Zidane's hair tickled his arm and his tears made his pillow gross and wet, and his tail coiled too tightly around his ankle, and he was sweaty and cold, but Blank tolerated it.

No one else knew about Zidane's night terrors. If they did, they were kind enough not to say anything. He got them worse than anyone Blank had ever seen. Cinna tossed and turned, and Marcus mumbled incoherently, Baku's snores were like thunderclaps and he cursed and shouted and all but brawled in his sleep, but Zidane was something else. Zidane _screamed_. It was a chilling sound rooted in pure fear, a fear of something that lay dormant in his mind like a monster biding its time until night fell, when Zidane was helpless to battle it.

He was sleeping so badly at one point that Baku prescribed him sleeping weed. Zidane had been staying up all night, sitting at the windows hollow eyed and frightened, his arms peppered with bruises from where he pinched himself awake. The sleeping weed worked wonders, but Zidane was young and quickly became dependant on it. It took months to wean him off it, inducing shakes and sweats and fevers, but they did it. And after, the night terrors returned.

It was bad, Blank knew. But he had never been very good at comforting. "You still cryin'?"

Zidane snuffled.

"They're just dreams, y'know. They can't hurt you."

Zidane curled closer to him, still snuffling.

Blank sighed. "Do you remember what it was about?"

"Nuh-no…"

"Really? Nothin'? But you get so scared."

"It's jus-just the feeling a-after… I don't luh-like it."

"Are there monsters?"

"I dunno… Just blue. A scary man in buh-black. Maybe monsters…"

"Maybe he's a monster," Blank suggested.

Zidane stayed quiet. It seemed like he'd stopped crying, so Blank carefully peeled his hands away.

"Go to sleep, Zidane. It's justa dream, okay? You can't b –"

"I know," he said fiercely. "I know that. I can't help it… Please can I just –"

"You big baby."

"Please?"

Blank huffed gruffly in hopes that it might cover up his wretchedly sympathetic heart. "Fine. But I'm havin' the pillow and you're sleepin' over there."

Zidane shifted away to the edge of the bed and curled into a little ball. The pillow was all damp and snotty and Zidane stole most of the covers during the night, and his hair tickled Blank's arm and when he fell asleep he snored a little bit. But Blank tolerated it, just as he tolerated the little tail still firmly wrapped around his ankle, because that's what big brothers did for little brothers in Tantalus.


End file.
